A short film on a budget, Super 8 or 16?

[Roy J. Brown]

If you have inexpensive access to a 16mm camera such a Canon Scoopic, Beaulieu R16 or Bolex Reflex and the film has limited lip sync I would shoot 16mm negative. There are many labs that will work with you and give you a reasonable rate for processing and Telecine. If you have a lot of lip sync you will need a more sophisticated camera and hence a lot more cash. Nothing against Super8mm I love the stuff. 16mm just looks better especially when transfered to Video. Now if you can't make your movie in 16mm because of money, I say shoot S8 Kodachrome.

Roy

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[blackangus1]

Pro8mm will recommend to you to shoot your daylight stuff on true daylight stock because -- hey, they're the only game in town! There is no other daylight-balanced Super8 stock available anywhere.

But people have been shooting K40 (a tungsten stock) in daylight for years and you don't hear any complaints.

So if you decide to go Super8, I would definitely recommend sticking with the same stock throughout, provided it meets your purposes (i.e., is 200 fast enough for your indoors scenes?) If you really want to go with Pro8, I would advise against using 50D for daylight mixed with 320T for tungsten, the difference in grain will be alarmingly noticeable. If you go Pro8, and you need 320T, and you really want a daylight-only stock for outdoors, I'd recommend using 250D and an ND filter. 250D and 320T will intercut very nicely together.

Since your budget is so low, I'd think you will have to be very conservative with your footage. I'll base numbers at an extremely conservative 3:1 ratio:

If you were going to go Pro8, you'd be looking at their "Movie Trailer Package", 12 cartridges (30 minutes of source) at $808, or $26.93 per minute.

If you were going to go with Kodak Vision 200T, 12 carts and processing cost $354, and a rushed 90 minutes of supervised transfer at The Transfer Station ($263) brings the total to $617, or $20.56/minute. You can save some money by having a DV8 transfer by Roger at $180, for a total stock/processing/xfer budget as low as $534, or $17.80/minute.

For 16mm new stock, we'll save some money by shooting Fuji, using Fuji 250D and Fuji 400T. A 3:1 ratio would be three rolls (actually 3 rolls delivers 3.3:1). Get your 20% discount by joining Film Arts Foundation, so your film costs about $285 total (assuming 400' loads). Process/prep at RGB Color Lab, 10c/ft = $120 plus maybe $30 prep charge (guessing). Transfer at The Transfer Station, $263. Total stock, processing & transfer: $698. At $21.15/minute, it's well under the Pro8mm costs, and you're getting 10% more footage too.

Finally, 16mm short ends at 17c/ft: 1100 feet (for 3:1 ratio instead of 3.3:1) stock costs $187. Processing is $110, transfer is the same, so total budget = $590, or $19.67/minute.

These are bare-bones, scraping-the-bottom-of-the-barrel costs. I really don't know how you'll cut the costs any more than this. Well, I do know of one way -- if you do a straight 1-light transfer and don't color-correct as you go, you can get your 16mm transfer costs down to $88 for one half-hour Rank session, but then you'll be doing all your color-correcting in the computer and it won't look nearly as good as if you had it corrected during the Rank on a DaVinci. But hey, if you nail your exposures perfectly and use a color temperature meter and get your light exactly right, you could shave $180 off your bill by doing the 1-light transfer, with only minor computer corrections necessary. That would bring 16mm (new stock) down to $15.70/minute, and 16mm short ends to $13.83/minute. And if you did the same trick with the Super8 Vision 200T deal, you'd save on that transfer too, bringing your total cost to $14.73/minute. More expensive than 16mm short ends, but at least it's guaranteed new fresh film.

Of course, in your original message you said you had no experience shooting negative, so I'd shy away from the quickie transfer session and expect to spend at least 3:1 in the telecine bay. Get a chip chart and shoot it at the head of each scene, that will save you a lot of time futzing with the DaVinci.

Keep in mind 3:1 is a *very* aggressive shooting ratio, very difficult to attain. You will need to be extremely organized with your storyboards, with well-rehearsed actors, to pull it off. And using S8 or short ends will make it more difficult because of the inherent inefficiency of using such small loads -- there will be more opportunities for waste at the tail of small rolls vs. having 400' at a time available to you. I've never used RGB, don't know how good their processing is, but it sure is cheap!

When it's all said and done, the difference in cost between 16mm negative and S8 negative is pretty much negligible, so that cost shouldn't be the overriding factor in determining what format to use. Make the decision based on whether the grain helps or hurts the project, whether the bouncing frame line and hand-held immediacy (typical of S8) are more appropriate, or if the tripod & dolly smoothness of 16mm are more appropriate (yes, of course you can put S8 on a tripod and you can handhold 16mm, but that's beside the point. S8 has historically been known for a certain "look" -- use it if it's appropriate.) Cost is really not much of an issue here and should not be the deciding factor.

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[S 8 Booster]

Personally I would not mind shooting any project on the K40 beause it is a great film but if the destination is video I would consider neg film.

I have 2 almost identical cams in theory: Canon 1014 Xl-S and a Elmo 1012 XL.

With the K40 the "C" is incredibly much better than the "E" on sharpness (grain) and clolour balance & vision of depth.

The K40 looks quite like a neg film with the "C". I think it is due to the lens coating, TTL light metering & exposure control.

It kind of extends the latitude of the K40.

The "E" makes the K40 look "typical" S8.

If your shoot ends up on DV anyway Kodak recommend the 200T neg as an outstanding allrounder.

Only thing: If you buy the V200T from PRO8 the cartridges are likly to be free of jitter.




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Vidar

[S 8 Booster]

At this Kodak link you will find the precise Technical Data for all the Kodak/ PRO8mm S8 neg stocks too: 50, 100, 200, 250, 320, 500 & 800 ASA.
http://www.kodak.com/country/US/en/m...ucts/negative/

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Vidar

[mattias]

s816:
> What kind of price difference are we looking at comparing Pro8mm negative to Kodak 200T, to 16mm from Kodak?

pro8 is $35 w/ processing, vision 200t around $30 and 16 mm around $50.

> I thought if anything people would of said that $1000 for ten minutes is a pretty decent budget.

*lol* it's actually a zero budget in any film format, since all money will go to stock, processing and transfer. anything you save by using super-8 you'll want to use to get a better ratio.

gaspode:
> However, many of these 'profesional' 'toy' cameras (How does that work?) have mane more features than you will ever find on a 16mm camera

really? a dissolve button or what? enlighten me please...


/matt

[Mikko]

"But people have been shooting K40 (a tungsten stock) in daylight for years and you don't hear any complaints."

I think K40 in bright daylight with daylight filter looks better than K40 with 3200k movie lights. And those hand held home movie lights make the skin tones go red with K40.

M

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[eightmmovies]

I reckon 16mm for 1000 USD or 750 GBP should be straight forward.
One second hand clockwork camera with 24 fps for around 100 USD - a load of film from one of those cheap sites you have the benefit of in the US, use negative and develope it yourself, see http://clockworkmovies.tripod.com for some ideas in that field!
Acquire one 16mm projector, camcorder and projector and film the negative, reverse on the computer and edit. Then back to film, edit from computer model and then get a proper print.
Usual disclaimers - I might try it myself - one day!
Good Luck

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keep the shutter going and check out MZ and Railways at http://www.siltec.co.uk

[supa_ate_sixteen]

Thanks everyone for your insightful and technical comments. I have decided to go 16mm since I will have access to a camera and am thinking of getting short ends and bargaining on a Rank transfer. If people could point me to sources for reliable short ends and a lab that will negotiate on a Rank transfer, please post them on this thred.

Thanks everybody!

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[mattias]

> One second hand clockwork camera with 24 fps for around 100 USD - a load of film from one of those cheap sites you have the benefit of in the US

good luck in finding short ends on daylight spools, which is the only thing the $100 cameras accept. guess you could spool it up yourself if you had a set of rewinds, but you'd have to live with the spots from the static electricity and the dust.

sorry to sound so sceptical, but you guys seem to think it's so easy to produce a 16 mm film. i'm just trying to set you on the right track... ;-)

/matt

[eightmmovies]

There was a famous British photographer, Beaton I think, who reckoned it was the user and not the camera that made the picture. to prove his point he produced some great pictures on a Brownie box camera.

If you are any good you will make a great film on an old Eumig clockwork.

If you are not, you will make a not so good film on an Arriflex.

Pros use the Arriflex because of the guarranteed output and the reliability of the parts, not to make them better film makers.

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keep the shutter going and check out MZ and Railways at http://www.siltec.co.uk